Monday, March 11, 2013

Every
Day is an Act of Resistance: Selected Poems by Carol Tarlen,
edited by David Joseph and Julia Stein (copyright 2012 Mongrel Empire
Press), is a fitting tribute, and homage to Tarlen; poet, mother,
activist, and compassionate human being.

In Every
Day, each poem is infused with the daily life of Tarlen, and vice
versa. Tarlen was a poet who lived with her shields down, and, in the
tradition of Blake and Whitman, breathed poetry as easily as air; her
poems are full of vitality, and, decidedly non-magical, as one would
expect from a working-class poet. However, there is a delicacy to her
work, a sensitive strength, which takes Tarlen's poems out of the
category of “working-class,” which may be, along with her
background, puts her in class by herself. Tarlen's poems evoke the
beauty of a wrought-iron fence: strong, detailed, and, starkly
exquisite, as in the poem, “To a Young Dancer”:

You cant
bend your knees,

So you cry
at night, while

I pound
language from a

machine.
“I'm sorry”

is an empty
sound, not worth

legs gone
mute. In this

Chinese
year of the horse,

we don't
speak of justice,

or that you
been named

snake. The
doctor says

Quit the
dance, but I'm your

Mother,
and I say, CRAWL,

Light
circling your new skin,

as you
slide to center stage.

Tarlen, a
Bay Area poet, was not able to achieve the level of success that most
of her peers. Co-editor Julia Stein, who wrote the moving forward for
Every Day, described Tarlen as a “North
Beach Emily Dickenson.” Tarlen was widely published in literary
magazines and anthologies, but was not able to secure a publisher to
put out a full-length collection of poetry during her lifetime. That
is where the difference ends. Poetry publishers, are no different
than other publishers who have to think in terms of dollars and
cents, but, more than likely, were intimidated by the frankness of
subject matter of Tarlen's work. Seriously, who wants to read about a
woman's struggle to come to terms with violence and violation, as in
the powerful poem “Arguments With a Would-be Rapist?” Or, who
wants to be reminded of the struggle to make ends meet as in the
poem, “Welfare Rights,” or, be gently admonished by Tarlen into
remembering that every person, no matter what their circumstances, is
infused with the spark of the divine, as in the poem “As an Angel
Glimpsed by Blake”:

Standing
near the doorway of a steel-

encased
office building, the man

in the
worn, black suit

wipes the
soil from his frayed, white

starched
cuffs and waits

for his son
to enter, eyes lowered,

as the man
too, lowers his eyes.

This is the
best he has,

the poverty
he wears, his empty hands

a gift of
shame for a son

who looks
away.

I see the
old man

in a
darkened theater,

an image
superimposed on scenes

of a filmed
revolution,

slipping
between shadows that fall

on
slogan-plastered walls.

He is my
vision, my DNA chain;

I circle my
wrists with his hunger

that
shimmers beneath my skin

translucent
like a bleached jellyfish

on
oil-slicked sand.

The answer
to the above questions is that I would, as well as others who can
look beyond the appellate “working-class,” will appreciate the
depth of feeling, and power of Tarlen's work.

Every
Day is an Act of Resistance: Selected Poems by Carol Tarlen,
(copyright 2012 Mongrel Empire Press, www.mongrelempire.org) edited
by David Joseph and Julia Stein, ISBN 978-98330529-3, 63 pages, $14.